


Any Way To Get Near You (That's What I'll Do)

by chancellorclarke



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4271535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancellorclarke/pseuds/chancellorclarke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root's actually good at math but Shaw, the math tutor, is really hot so she's pretending to be dumb.</p><p>High School AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“No, no, no!” Shaw growls frustratedly for the sixth time. “It’s not that hard, Root! When you do the chain rule, you have to take the derivative of the outside first, then the inside. Not the other way around.” She snatches the pencil from Root’s right hand. “Just watch how I do it,” Shaw says as she begins scribbling out numbers on Root’s sheet of paper.

Root smiles to herself, her hands tucked under her chin, watching contently at Shaw solving the problem with ease, her tongue sticking out in concentration. Truth be told, Root could’ve solved that problem in under 5 seconds without Shaw’s help—hell, she could’ve solved a problem that’s ten times as complex in under 30 seconds. She knows calculus like the back of her hand, backwards and forwards. She’d learned it since she was ten—it was essential for her to learn once she got to the more advance levels of coding.

So why was she here? At the after school tutoring center at 5pm in the afternoon for the past month?

Well...

Root’s eyes soften as Shaw readjusts her black glasses on her face to keep them from falling down, her hair in a loose ponytail. Her focus is fixed on solving the equation, and Root can’t help but bite her lower lip from the sight in front of her.

“There,” Shaw says, placing the pencil down with finality. “See what I did?” She points to the first steps, but Root’s eyes never leave Shaw’s face. “You pull the five down—”

“I’d like to pull something else down,” Root mumbles to herself.

Shaw looks up. “What did you say?”

Shit, she said that aloud didn’t she.

“Nothing,” Root tries to cover, smiling through her lie.

Shaw narrows her eyes skeptically, but continues on her explanation anyway, pointing at the numbers she’d written out again.

“Like I said, you pull the five down, the five in the exponent becomes a four, and then.” She taps her finger at the inside function. “You multiply the entire thing with this three.” Shaw looks up at Root. “You got that?”

Root nods, though Shaw’s still looking at her warily. She should—Root’s nodded at the last five explanations Shaw’s given, and each and every time after, Root still kept doing the problems wrong.

What Shaw doesn’t know however, is that Root’s been purposely getting the wrong answer, but she’ll never tell Shaw that. If she did, then that would mean Mr. Greer won’t assign Shaw to Root as her math tutor anymore, and if Mr. Greer won’t assign Shaw to Root, that means they won’t meet twice a week for math, and if they don’t meet twice a week for math, that means Root won’t get to see Shaw outside of class.

And not seeing Shaw outside of class is something Root would very much like to avoid.

Shaw sighs. “Alright, now try the next one.”

“Okay,” Root says cheerily, taking her pencil and attempting to solve the problem in the most incorrect way possible. After a few scribbles, she stops writing, and shows her work to Shaw.

“Did I get it right?” Root asks sheepishly, knowing full well that she didn’t.

Shaw lays her head on the table, covering her face.

“Somebody shoot me,” Shaw groans under her breath, shaking her head.

“Ah, Samantha!” Mr. Finch greets as he’s walking into the classroom. “And Sameen.” Finch nods at them both. “You’re both here quite late in the evening.”

“Tell me about it,” Shaw grumbles. “We’ve been here since 2p.m.” She throws Root’s pencil off the table in exasperation. It should make Root upset—it’s her pencil after all—but if anything, it just makes her want to laugh. “God she’s so bad at math.”

Finch gives her a confused look. “Really? Samantha got the highest grade in the class in the last exam.”

Root freezes, and Shaw immediately shoots Root an accusing look.

Uh oh.

Root shrugs, trying to play it off. “I guess it was just luck.”

Shaw narrows her eyes at her even more. She doesn’t buy it. “What was the last test on, Mr. Finch?” Shaw asks, still glaring Root down.

Root twiddles her thumbs, knowing that she’s about to get caught.

“The last one was on derivatives and anti-derivatives. Root solved all the problems, even my extra credit ones. And she did it in the most elegant way. Best I’ve seen in years.” Finch smiles, though it falters when he notices how nervous Root looks. “Don’t be ashamed, Samantha. You should celebrate your accomplishments.” He turns to look at Shaw. “She must have you to thank, Sameen. What with you working with her every week on math. She must be a wiz at derivatives by now.”

Shaw cocks an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised, Mr. Finch.”

Mr. Finch’s smile doesn’t falter. “I’m sure she is. Samantha is just full of surprises.” He clearly doesn’t realize what he’d just done, or what Shaw's going to do to Root after he leaves.

“Well, I’m off to grade the rest of the exams. Don’t stay here too late you two,” he says as he exits the room.

“We won’t,” they say through forced smiles, waving him off.

The door closes, and Shaw immediately redirects her attention to Root.

“So,” Shaw says menacingly. Root swallows hard. “Are you going to tell me why you wasted my time going over the same problem when you know it well enough to ace the test? Or do I have to beat it out of you?”

Maybe Root should've thought this plan through. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Please, Shaw.”

“No,” Shaw bites, angrily getting her books out of her locker. It’s been a week since Shaw found out that Root was only pretending to be bad at Calculus, courtesy of Mr. Finch and his blabbing mouth. Root scrunches her nose in disdain, remembering that day. After Finch had left the classroom, Shaw hounding her for two hours, asking her why Root had requested her tutoring sessions and actively failed all of her lessons when Root was a genius at math. But of course, Root wouldn’t say, and Shaw became so frustrated that she eventually punched Root in the stomach, hard—Root still has the yellowing bruise to show for it. She knows that this could’ve all been avoided if she’d just told the truth, but what was she supposed to say? That the only reason she signed up for Finch’s tutoring center was because Shaw was one of the tutors? That Root personally requested Shaw to be hers because she wanted to watch Shaw talk for hours on end?

No, that would’ve made a bigger mess of things, and Shaw was already mad enough about Root tricking her, let alone knowing about that. Besides, Root had a plan on winning back Shaw’s trust and, hopefully—eventually, she’d become someone who Shaw can... tolerate again, instead someone who she currently sees as insufferable.

There’s just one thing, though.

Root didn’t anticipate on failing her Physiology exam. “I’m not helping you, Root,” Shaw repeats.

So here she is, standing next to Shaw’s locker, begging for Shaw to help her. She’d gone to the other tutors in the last few weeks to teach her, but all of them were incompetent—none of them kept her attention for more than thirty minutes, and most of them quit before the first hour was over. Shaw was her last and only hope.

But surely Shaw’s over this grudge by now, right? “Oh, don’t be like that,” Root placates. “I—“ Shaw slams her locker closed.  
Wrong.

“No,” Shaw says adamantly. She turns around and starts walks towards her next class, her textbooks clutch closely to her chest.

Root pouts, following closely behind Shaw.

“You can’t just let me fail this class.”

Shaw scoffs, pushes her glasses back to the bridge of her nose. “Who says you’re failing? For all I know you could be acing Physiology, just like you are with Calculus,” Shaw says bitterly.

“Well,” Root huffs. “That was different.”

“Different how?”

“Just...” Root pauses, trying to find the right words to say.

Unfortunately, she comes up empty. “Just different,” Root finishes.

Shaw rolls her eyes, but doesn’t dignify Root’s answer with a response. Instead, she opts to pick up her pace.

“I am failing this class,” Root says, unzipping her backpack and taking out her graded exam. “I got a 53 out of 100 on it. The second midterm’s tomorrow and it’s 40 percent of my grade. I need your help, Shaw.”

Shaw doesn’t stop walking. “Sucks for you,” Shaw sneers, unsympathetic. “But this isn’t my problem.”

Root frowns.

Okay, this method of playing nice? This method of reasoning with Shaw? It isn’t working. Time for Plan B.

Root runs in front of Shaw and stands right in front of her path, stopping her in her tracks. “Root, get out of my wa—“

“Look,” Root commands.

To Root’s surprise, Shaw actually listens.

“You’re a tutor," Root says, taking another step towards her. "My tutor,” Root emphasizes, poking her index finger at Shaw’s sternum. Shaw swats her hand away, but Root grabs her wrist. “And if I fail this class, who do you think Finch would hold responsible after he finds out his favorite student failed Physiology?”

Shaw’s eyes widen in disbelief, before narrowing at Root.

“You wouldn’t.”

Root shrugs coldly, releasing Shaw’s wrist. “That’d reflect poorly on you, wouldn’t it?”

Shaw lets out a self-disparaging laugh, shaking her head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Root cocks an eyebrow at her.

“Try me.”

Shaw looks at her for a moment, as though she’s weighing the probability of Root actually do it. She must've thought that the odds weren't in her favor, though, because not a minute has passed before her frown deepens. Shaw sighs, grabbing the exam out of Root’s hands.

“What’s your midterm on?” Shaw grumbles, flipping through the test.

The bell rings.

“Bones,” Root informs through the shrill noise. “Bones and muscles.”

Shaw doesn’t say anything after that. They stand there in the middle of the hallway as she skims through each page, the students around them rush to their respective classes. Root looks at Shaw anxiously, but Shaw continues reading through the questions. After a few minutes, Shaw looks up at the clock and closes the packet, starts walking down the hallway again, Root’s exam on top of the books she’s carrying.

Root follows.

“So,” Root asks, hopeful. “You’ll help?”

At that, Shaw stops walking, looks at Root in a mixture of incredulity and irritation. “Does it look like I have a choice?”

Root grins.

Perhaps she won’t fail Physiology after all. 


	3. Chapter 3

“What’s this bone called?”

Root leans back in the chair, thinking.

“The carpals?” Root guesses.

Shaw gives her a pointed look. "Are you asking me or are you telling me?"

Root purses her lips.

"The carpals," Root says more firmly.

"Nope," Shaw says, popping the 'p' when she says it. “Not unless you have your wrist bones in your leg." She taps her index finger on the picture. “This is your tibia.”

Root exhales, irritated, as Shaw crosses off another bone on the list that Root has yet to memorize. They've been at this for three hours and Root still hasn’t learned more than twenty of the bones, let alone the muscular system. To make matters worse, it’s already five in the afternoon. She only has less than a day to cram this material.

Root groans. There’s no point. She's going to fail. Completely and utterly fail. She's going to fail because of this stupid and dry subject and she's going to have to hack into the school system just to change her grade into a—

Shaw taps her pen on the piece of paper, pulling Root out of her thoughts. Shaw’s staring at the list in front of her, tapping to a beat Root can’t hear. It doesn’t seem like she’s doing it on purpose, though—it’s almost like she's fidgeting. As though there’s something on her mind.

Curious, Root asks, "What?"

Shaw looks up at her, the beginnings of a frown on her face. “You sure you’re not failing this on purpose?”

Root lets out a humorless laugh, and Shaw’s frown deepens.

"I wish I was."

Shaw stares at her skeptically. She looks wary.

Great. The one time she actually needs Shaw to trust her and she doesn’t.

“Shaw, I’m not doing this on purpose,” Root says as genuinely as she can. “I really do need you.”

Shaw still doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but she must believe that there’s some truth in Root’s words, because her expression softens a bit. She looks back down on the sheet.

“Then it’s actually a miracle that you’re so good at math.”

Root snorts. She kicks her legs up onto the table, grabs a handful of chips from the bowl, popping one into her mouth. “I’ve been doing Calculus since I was little."

Shaw gives her a strange look, and Root stops chewing, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

“What?”

“You're telling me that you learned Calculus when you were little?”

Root shrugs nonchalantly, popping another chip in her mouth.

"Just one of my many talents,” Root gloats, her words muffled from the food in her mouth.

Shaw rolls her eyes. “I guess failing Physiology is one of your talents too.”

Root glares at her, throws a chip at her in retaliation. Shaw catches it with her mouth, smirking in victory.

Root’s heart flutters.

Root really does have bigger problems than her growing crush on Shaw, and she should be focusing on other things—like her impending exam—but still, she’s sitting here, watching absentmindedly at Shaw chewing. To be honest, there’s nothing graceful about what Shaw’s doing at all—there’s nothing worth watching. She eats with her mouth half-open, eats like it’s her last meal she’s ever going to get. And yet, Root can’t help but watch her, captivated. The crinkle of her eyes, the soft smile on her lips, the—

Perhaps she might be staring a little too long, because now Shaw arches an eyebrow at her questioningly.

Root shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

“Fine,” she concedes, grabbing another chip from the bowl. “Maybe not at this. But I learn subjects better by doing, and there's nothing about Physiology that I can do. It's all...” Root strays off, scrunching her nose in dismay. "Diagrams and pictures."

“Wait,” Shaw says, leaning across the table. “What did you say?”

“That I have many talents?” Root asks, biting into the chip.

Shaw rolls her eyes. “No, after that.”

“That I learn better by doing?”

Shaw smiles widely like she's figured something out. Root tilts her head, amused. Oddly enough, out of all the times she’s spent with Shaw in this tutoring center, this is the first time she’s seen Shaw genuinely smile. It’s infectious, and even though Root doesn’t exactly know what Shaw figured out, she’s helpless to return her smile anyway.

Shaw stands up from her chair, readjusting her glasses. "Get up."

Root gives her a confused look. She doesn’t know where Shaw’s heading with this, but she does as she’s told.

“Now raise your right arm in front of you, palm up,” Shaw directs. Again, she does as she’s told.

“What’re you planning on—“

Root doesn’t get to finish her question because Shaw suddenly places her hand on her forearm, and Root’s eyes widen at the sight.

Shaw’s touching her. Her hand. Her hand is on her skin.

Root swallows hard. Her heart’s beating a mile a minute. Shaw’s hand is—it’s on her forearm, and now her stomach feels like she’s swallowed a ton of butterflies and they won’t stop fluttering and—

“This is your radius,” Shaw says matter-of-factly, and Root looks up at her.

Well, it seems that Shaw hasn’t noticed Root’s panic. Her focus is completely on Root’s arm.

Good. Root just needs to calm herself down before Shaw notices. And if she can do that, then Shaw won’t freak out. She’ll treat her the same way as she always has. Shaw will still—though begrudgingly—stay as Root’s tutor. She’ll still be able to see Shaw on a daily basis.

She just needs to calm herself down, not let her feelings get to her. Just stay calm.

Shaw moves her hand to the underside of Root’s forearm, and Root inhales deeply, trying to control her heartbeat and get it to slow down.

“And this is your ulna.” Shaw slides her hand with purpose up Root’s arm. Up and up and—

Root doesn’t know whether she should curse herself to choose today of all days to wear a short- sleeved shirt, or be grateful that she did.

“This is your humerus.” She taps her index finger against Root’s skin. “The inner muscle is your biceps.”

Root nods as though she understood. If she were being completely honest, she hasn’t paid attention to a word Shaw’s said.

“On the back, your triceps.” Shaw lets go of Root’s arm, and Root exhales. She feels like she can breathe again.

Shaw arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything about that. “Now contract your arm so that your forearm moves towards you,” she says, continuing on with the lesson.

Root contracts her arm.

“When you do that, your biceps are contracting, while your triceps are extending.” Shaw pauses for a moment, then says, “Think of them as levers. If one of them is pulling, the other has to loosen.”

Shaw places her hand on Root’s shoulder, and Root wills herself not to tense at the contact.

“The muscle on your shoulder is your deltoid. When you raise your arm, it contracts.” Shaw glides her fingers inward, toward Root’s sternum.

Root really hopes Shaw can’t hear her heart beating right now.

“This is your clavicle,” Shaw says, and then presses her thumb down gently. Root bites her lip, tries not to make any noise. “Below that is your pectoralis major.”

Shaw looks up at her face from her lack of response, and narrows her eyes at her. “Are you even paying attention?”

“Mhm,” Root hums half-heartedly.

Shaw looks at her suspiciously, as though she can see through her lie, and Root smiles nervously.

“This,” Shaw emphasizes, moving her hand to Root’s jaw. “Is your mandible.” With her hold on her jaw, she positions Root’s head down towards her, looking directly in Root’s eyes, her expression, hard.

“And if you try anything funny, I will break it,” Shaw says lowly, before letting go of her face. “Got that?”

Root’s eyes widen.

Does she—does she know?

“Got it,” Root mumbles. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter will be posted up next week.

The next two hours they spend together goes like this:

  1.      Shaw attempts to drill her on the names and locations of all the bones and muscles, which ones extend and which ones contract with particular motions, using Root’s body as a prop.
  2.      Root tries very, very hard to pay attention on what Shaw’s teaching her while maintaining her composure.
  3.      (Root learns that she’s terrible at multitasking with Shaw around.) 
  4.      Shaw shoots judgmental looks at her whenever she feels that Root isn’t paying attention.
  5.      Root gets defensive, because she _is_ paying attention...just less on the bones and muscles themselves, and more on Shaw’s hands that are _on_ her bones and muscles. Which is almost the same thing.
  6.      Which leads to Root trying to convince Shaw of that—minus the latter part.
  7.      It doesn’t work.
  8.       Shaw resorts to throwing chips at her whenever she feels Root losing focus.
  9.      She runs out of chips to throw after the first thirty minutes.
  10.   Miraculously, Shaw gets through the list in the next hour and a half without throttling her— well, not successfully anyway.



And now, here they are.

Shaw steps back from Root.

“You got all that?” Shaw asks, sounding impatient.

Root doesn’t think so. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate Shaw’s decided method of teaching on this subject—she does. She really, _really_ does. And if they weren’t on such on a time constraint, she’d revel in all that Shaw was doing on her. But unfortunately, they are— _she_ is, and while this method does help her learn better than anything else they’ve tried so far, it certainly does leave her...distracted, to say the least.

And it’s what Root’s about to tell her when the sentence dies at the back of her throat after she takes a good look at Shaw’s face. She knows that look. She’s been the receiver of that look many times in this tutoring center. It’s the look Shaw always gives whenever her limit for annoyance is about to hit its max, when her temper’s running low, to the point where she won’t hesitate to stab Root with a pencil to take out her frustration, and Root does not want a repeat of what happens when she crosses Shaw after she gets like this. Because if Root pushes Shaw’s buttons even a little bit more, Shaw would walk out, Root would get reassigned to a different tutor for the rest of the week because Shaw’s too “busy,” and Shaw would avoid her. Everywhere.

Yeah, not something Root wants to happen, especially now.

Root nods. “Yeah,” she affirms, even though she’s unsure how much of that information she retained. “I got it.”

Shaw looks unconvinced—and with good reason. With a purse of her lips, Shaw suddenly tells her, “Name all the muscles and bones on your legs and back.”

“But you just showed—“ 

“You said that you learn better by doing, right?” Shaw interrupts. “That’s what we’re doing.”

Root winces at the harshness of Shaw’s tone, but quickly recovers. “You’re the boss,” Root quips. 

Shaw looks at her, un-amused, and points to Root’s feet.

 “Start from the bottom,” Shaw orders.

With a tight smile, Root leans down—her hair covering her face—and does what Shaw says. She sure hopes that she remembered all the information Shaw just taught her.

Root touches the tips of her feet. “Phalanges,” she says, moving her fingers inward. “Metatarsals, tarsals.” She stands a little bit straighter, slides her hands up to her leg. “Tibia, fibula, Achilles tendon.”

Root smiles to herself. Maybe Shaw’s teaching method is good for more than one thing after all.

“I don’t have time for this, Root,” Shaw says irritably. “Hurry up.”

Root tenses uneasily. See, any other day, Root would chalk this mood of Shaw’s up as a case of hunger, or general crankiness for spending too much time locked in this tutoring center, but today she can’t. Because unlike those days before, there was something Shaw said to her earlier that was just _off._ She was on her best behavior, and yet Shaw told her...

Maybe Shaw’s caught on. Maybe all of what Shaw’s doing right now is retribution for it.

Maybe she’s behaving this way because she _knows._

Root’s shoulders slacken. She curses herself for not being able to keep up her performance around her. If she’d done a better job then Shaw would still be oblivious. But she didn’t, and now by this time tomorrow, Shaw will probably tell Mr. Greer to transfer Root over to someone else. Tell him that Root is “unfit to be taught by her” or something along those lines. And because Shaw’s Mr. Greer’s favorite, he’d probably do it, reassign her to Lambert or someone else Root can’t stand. This’ll be the last Root will see of her because Shaw knows, because she doesn’t feel the same way.

Root’s expression changes, forlorn.

She knew this would happen. And now Shaw’s practically punishing her for it—all of it. There’s nothing she could do now to make Shaw stay—she’s going to leave after her exam is over.

“Well?” Shaw asks again. Root shifts, letting her hair cover more of her face.

If this is the last time she’ll see of Shaw, then she should just make the most of it, right? Do the things she was too afraid to do because she thought it’d push Shaw too far. What’s the worse that could happen now? Root already knows she’s going to quit.

She should just...do it.

 Just do it. 

Root’s resolve hardens. With a deep breath, she puts on a bright smile and stands up straight. “It’s not like I can twist my head a 180 degrees, Shaw,” Root says cheekily.

Shaw glowers at her. “Don’t play games with me, Root.”

“Like you said earlier, I learn by doing,” Root reminds her. “I can’t actually touch the bones and see the muscles on my back now, can I?”

It takes a few moments for Shaw to register what Root’s hinting at, and then it finally dawns on her. She clenches her jaw, lets out a thrumming growl. A low, intimidating, really-shouldn’t-mess- with-her growl. She looks like she’s going to kill Root for even suggesting it.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

Root backtracks. “We don’t have to do this anymore. I won’t tell Mr. Finch.”

Shaw’s expression remains unchanged.

“You can leave,” Root offers. “I’ll—“

“Shut up,” Shaw cuts her off, before turning around. “Just shut up,” Shaw says again, and takes off her shirt, throwing it onto the desk, revealing her sports bra.

Root freezes.

Now that’s not something she expected Shaw to do. A storm out, maybe. Perhaps even a punch in the jaw for suggesting it. But this?

Root gulps. She didn’t know what she expected, but certainly not this. Certainly not for Shaw to actually—

Shaw turns her head around. “You mention this to anyone, and I will end you,” she threatens lowly.

Root nods, not trusting her voice, and Shaw turns her head back around, looking straight ahead, her hands palm down on the desk. Root walks closer to Shaw, step by step, her knees wobbling. Facing Shaw’s back, she then raises her hand—it’s shaky and sweaty, she knows—and lets the tips of her trembling fingers feather lightly down Shaw’s spine, gentle, almost reverent.

Her skin is warm to the touch, and Root feels Shaw’s muscles tense at the contact. Root’s lips quirk up slightly, shocked. Out of curiosity, she digs her fingernails onto Shaw’s smooth skin–not enough to hurt, but enough to leave half-crescent moons behind. Shaw’s hands clench on the desk in the corner of her eye.

Root’s small smile erupts into a wolfish grin.

Practicing on someone else’s body is fascinating. But practicing on Shaw’s? Even more so, Root thinks as she digs her fingernails deeper onto Shaw’s back, causing Shaw to stiffen further.

Shaw must realize Root’s starting to mess around, because she suddenly barks, “Get on with it.”

Root pauses, but oddly, doesn’t feel like she’s caught red-handed at all. In fact, it spurs her on, and with an offhanded “Okay,” Root drags her fingers back up, captivated by the goose bumps on their trail, and then—interestingly enough—Shaw actually _shivers._

Root tilts her head, thinking. She wonders if... No. Shaw doesn’t feel anything for her besides, at most, tolerance. Nothing else.

Does she?

Root slides her hand to Shaw’s side, and squeezes lightly. To her pleasant surprise, she feels more than hears Shaw intake a sharp breath, notes a small shudder before Shaw wills her body to still again. It makes Root think—perhaps even naively believe—that maybe. Maybe Shaw does.

It makes her heart beat with dangerous hope and she knows she really shouldn’t, because she knows where this heads. She’s been here before. It was terrible then and it’ll be terrible now.

But it’s—it’s Shaw.

With a huff, Root decides to push her luck and put her little hypothesis to the test. Consequences be damned.

Root moves her hand to the base of Shaw’s neck, lays it flat, and starts listing the bones of the spine.

“Cervical vertebrae,” Root begins, then fans out her hand. “Trapezius,” she says, curls her fingers slightly before skimming downward as slowly as she can, leaving white marks in her wake. Root hears a strangled exhale, then a string of words in a low mutter that she can’t quite make out. Even so, Root smiles to herself, moving onto the next bone.

“Thoracic vertebrae,” she says, continuing her path down. “Lumbar vertebrae.”

Root pauses, leans her body to the side to get a good look of Shaw’s face. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her hands clenched, knuckles white. She’s taking a deep breath, as though to calm herself down. She’s facing the ceiling, with furrowed brows and pursing lips.

Root takes this opportunity to step closer to Shaw, until she can almost feel the heat radiate off of Shaw’s body, and with both of her hands on Shaw’s waist, slides them down to her hip, and squeezes, causing Shaw to lurch forward.

“Pelvic gir—“

“Stop,” Shaw commands, her voice unusually hoarse, and quickly moves her hands to clutch Root’s own, gripping them painfully to get Root to release her. Root complies, and lets her go reluctantly, stepping back.

“I didn’t finish,” Root pouts.

Shaw turns around, her eyes dark and wild and full of something else Root’s never seen before, something she can’t quite put a name to. Shaw takes a step forward predatorily, close enough for Root to feel her breathe. She’s vibrating with anger—fuming, really—and yet Root’s oddly calm about it all. In fact, she boldly smirks as they stare each other down. Why? Because there may be some truth to her hypothesis after all. Because right now, Shaw’s gaze actually flickers down more often to her lips than they stay on her eyes, and it riles Root to lean in close to Shaw’s ear tauntingly and whisper, “Did I pass your little test?”

At that, Shaw pushes her, and as Root stumbles back, she can’t help but grin at her reaction.

“We’re done here,” Shaw seethes, before quickly putting her shirt back on and walking towards the door, muttering to herself as she shakes her head. Root watches her the entire time, her grin still in place.

When Shaw slams it closed behind her, Root thinks that Physiology isn’t such a boring subject as she first made it out to be.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter’s so short. I have to put all my WIPs on hold at the moment, but I’ll pick this back up around August, after I’m finished writing the fic for Shoot week.

 

 

“Class, you have ten minutes to—“

Root rushes through the door and across the teacher, sits down on her seat, her hair slightly disheveled.

“So nice of you to join us, Ms. Groves,” the teacher says derisively, grabbing an extra copy of the test from the stack on her desk.

Root tries to give her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Ms. Claypool, I—“

“I don’t care,” Ms. Claypool cuts off, dropping the copy on Root’s table, faced down. She walks to the front, turning her back just as Root makes a sour face at her.

“As I was saying, you have forty-five minutes to complete the test.” Ms. Claypool looks directly at Root, and stares her down. “Cheating will not be tolerated," she warns, as though she suspects Root will cheat, and it makes Root’s skin prickle with annoyance. It’s irritating, really, her lack of faith in Root’s capabilities of doing well on this test—ethically—because while, sure, she failed one of Ms. Claypool’s tests in the past and has a track record of getting into a little trouble, she’s smart. Smarter than a lot of the students in the class—hell, even smarter than her.

So, while Root knows it’s completely juvenile, she still looks at Ms. Claypool right in the eye, and with an arrogant voice, says, “I won’t,” arching her eyebrow as she does, just to get under her teacher’s skin.

It works. Ms. Claypool narrows her eyes at her in contempt. Lucky for Root though, she doesn’t call Root out on it. Instead, she grabs a piece of chalk from her desk, and starts writing their time limit on the chalkboard. She announces:

"You may begin."

Nervousness runs throughout her body then, and Root feels a brief spike of doubt on whether she’s prepared enough--if she’s prepared at all. She’s spent the past 24 hours cramming for this test, and while she feels like she’s retained at least some of what Shaw’s taught her, she doesn’t know if it’s enough to pass the test. There’s nothing else she can do about it now, but if she fails this test…

Root gulps. She really doesn’t want to hack into the school system again, especially after what happened last time, when she was caught by Mr. Finch and was put into detention. Fortunately for her, she was able to cover her tracks as to whose file she was altering, but still. She doesn’t want a repeat of getting another mark on her permanent record, especially when college applications are so close.

Root taps her fingers against her desk. Finally, with antsy hands, flips over the test.

She skims through the sheet quickly. A wide smile appears on her face when she realizes what the test is. It’s a fill-in-the-blank diagram—similar to the one Shaw had gone over with her yesterday. The same one that Shaw had made her memorize using her own body, then on Shaw’s. Root’s eyes drift off slightly, recalling the day before. The smooth feel of her skin, her muscles tensing. She remembers _that_ quite intimately.

Root clicks her pen confidently, and starts filling in the blanks.

She’s going to ace this.

 

 

*

 

 

“How’d your test go?”

Root dials her combination for her locker, smiling to herself as Hanna’s leaning her body against the neighboring lockers. Based on how quickly she went through the test and how easy it was for her, Root knows she passed it with flying colors. And if Ms. Claypool gave her a withering look as she handed it in her test first, if Ms. Claypool glared at her after she graded it and realized how Root had done—with Root smirking confidently in front of her as she did—well, that’s her problem.

“Pretty well, actually,” Root says.

The locker door unlocks, and Root opens it. As she starts unzipping her backpack, she sees Hanna give her a pointed look out of the corner of her eye.

Root’s lips quirk up, slightly confused.

“What?”

“How well is ‘pretty well’?” Hanna asks skeptically. “Because the last time you told me that, you failed the exam.”

“Well, this time, I did do well.” Root takes out her Physiology textbook from her backpack, pushes it into her locker. “Shaw tutored me.”

Hanna scrunches her face. “I thought Shaw was your math tutor.”

Root closes her locker.

“She is.”

Which is true. Sort of. Root still doesn’t know how much yesterday’s… _incident_ affected their arrangement—whether Shaw’s going to stop talking to her completely or ignore her for a few days, as she’d done so before when Root pushed too far. And while the session did give her an insight Shaw’s feelings towards her—something that, for the longest time, Root thought was nonexistent—Root knows that she’d probably pushed Shaw’s buttons more than she should have, if Shaw’s storm out was any indication. Still, she hopes that, maybe, she didn’t actually ruin what they had. Maybe this will blow over, like every other time.

So, pending that Shaw doesn’t hate her after what Root’d done yesterday, Shaw still is her tutor.

Root starts walking towards the cafeteria, and Hanna pushes herself off the lockers, following beside Root.

“Then why did she go out of her way to tutor you in Physiology?”

Because of her ineffectual pleading. Incessant prodding. Vague and weighted threats.

Root shrugs innocently.

“She made an exception.”

Or that too. It isn’t a complete lie.

Hanna laughs in disbelief, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe she doesn’t know.”

Root throws her a glare. “I’m not that obvious.”

“Trust me,” Hanna says through her chuckles. “You are. The eyes that you give her are nauseating to witness.”

“I don’t do that,” Root counters petulantly, then says, “You’re the one who suggested I sign up for the tutoring center and request her to be my tutor in the first place.”

Hanna’s laughing subsides. “As a joke!” she defends. “I didn’t actually think you’d do that.”

“You thought wrong,” Root says haughtily. “As always.”

Hanna rolls her eyes, but doesn’t argue any further. “Whatever. Still can’t believe she doesn’t know.”

It’s then that Root goes silent. She purses her lips as they cross through the cafeteria doors.

Hanna gives her an accusing look.

“What?”

“I think she does,” Root admits.

Hanna stares at her then, wide eyed. A smile creeps up on her face, both of shock and amusement.

“Shut up,” Hanna grins. “When?”

“I don’t know when exactly.” Root frowns after saying those words aloud. It’s not like her to miss something crucial as that, and certainly not something that was relevant to Shaw. But somehow, she did.

“I was so careful whenever I’m with her,” Root continues, as they line up. “But she was acting so strange during our session yesterday.”

Hanna quirks an eyebrow. “Like?”

Root looks straight ahead then, debating whether or not to tell Hanna what happened. It’s not like Root doesn’t want to—she does. Hanna’s her best friend ever since they were little, knows that Hanna would do anything for her, just as she would for Hanna. If Root tells her, chances are, Hanna would help her deal with it, solve it, figure out a way to clean up the mess. But Shaw specifically told her yesterday not to mention it to anyone, and while they might be on bad terms already, Root doesn’t want to risk worsening the situation, or worse, make Shaw burn a bridge between the two of them.

“Well?” Hanna asks, looking at her expectantly.

Root bites her lip. Shaw might’ve told her not to talk about their… _hands-on_ portion of the session, but everything before that...she can talk about, right?

“Spill.”

Right.

“She told me that she’ll break my jaw if I tried anything funny,” Root says.

Hanna gives her a confused look as they grab cafeteria trays. “So? Doesn’t she always say things like that?”

“Yeah,” Root sighs lovingly.

“Then I don’t see how it’s a sign that she knows.”

“It’s just—” Root pauses, thinks about choosing her words wisely as she grabs a corn dog, then a piece of fruit. “I didn’t do anything that would cause her to say that.”

Hanna waves her off. “I think you’re overthinking it. Shaw’s like a guard dog. Bite first, ask questions later.”

“I don’t know, Hanna,” Root says skeptically, looking down at her food as they towards their table. “This time felt different.”

“Why don’t you just ask her then?”

Root gives her an unamused look. “Funny.”

“Seriously,” Hanna says, nodding towards the table in front of her. “She’s right there.”

Root goes wide-eyed. “What?” she asks, and looks up to where Hanna directed.

It’s Shaw. Looking straight at her.

Glaring at her.

 

 

 

 


End file.
